d De Quincey is not far wrong in saying that
it is 'the realization of anarchy.'

Read the poem for its poetical merits and you will forget its defects.
Pope was a superficial teacher, but direct teaching is not the end of
poetry. _The Essay on Man_ is not a poem which can be read and re-read
with ever-growing delight, but there are passages in it of as fine an
order as any that he has composed on more familiar subjects. Pope was,
as Sir William Hamilton said, a curious reader, and the ideas versified
in the poem may be traced to a variety of sources. Students who wish to
follow this track will find all the help they need in Mr. Pattison's
instructive notes, and in the comments attached to the poem in Elwin and
Courthope's edition. In his Introduction Mr. Pattison observes that 'the
subject of the _Essay on Man_ is not, considered in itself, one unfit
for poetry. Had Pope had a genius for philosophy there was no reason why
he should not have selected a philosophical subject. Didactic poetry is
a mistake if not a contradiction in terms. But poetry is not necessarily
didactic because its subject is philosophical.'

It is always difficult to define the themes suitable for poetry. Many
theories have been formed as to the scope of the art, and poets have
been amply instructed by critics as to what they ought to do, and what
they should avoid doing. The theories may appear sound, the arguments
convincing, until a great poet arises and knocks them on the head. In a
sense every poet of the highest order is also a philosopher and a
prophet who sees into 'the life of things.' Whether a philosophical
subject can be fitly represented in the imaginative light of poetry is a
matter for discussion rather than for decision. In the case of Pope,
however, it will be evident to all studious readers that he was
incapable of the continuous thought needed for the argument of the
_Essay_.

'Anything like sustained reasoning,' says Mr. Leslie Stephen,' was
beyond his reach. Pope felt and thought by shocks and electric
flashes.... The defect was aggravated or caused by the physical
infirmities which put sustained intellectual labour out of the
question.'[23]

Crousaz, a Swiss pastor and professor, who appears to have competed with
Berkeley for a prize and won it, attacked Pope's _Essay_ for its want of
orthodoxy, and his work was translated into English. The poet became
alarmed, but had the good fortune to find a champion in Warburton, who